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Published: January 16th 2012
St. Augustine Street
A typical street in the St. Augustine historic district. Clearly, they did not anticipate modern carsSt. Augustine
I spent the day in
St. Augustine.
As the town tourist authorities love to point out, it’s the
oldest continuously occupied city in the US.
That is less impressive than it sounds.
The town changed hands multiple times over the centuries, so it has remarkably little from the early days of settlement other than the street layout.
The town is also a
huge tourist magnet, so visiting with sanity intact requires advance research.
The town was founded by the Spanish as a fort.
English pirates were threatening the lucrative trade route that brought seized Inca gold to Spain, and the king wanted to protect it.
A garrison was duly established.
A few decades later, English ships from Charleston attached and burned the town to the ground.
The Spanish rebuilt, and persevered until the
Seven Years War started in 1756, which pitted England and Prussia against France, Spain, and Austria across the globe (most Americans know it as the
French and Indian War).
England won, and sized a large amount of Spanish and French colonial territory worldwide (Prussia got most of what is now Germany and other European territories)
Florida was part of the spoils.
Castillo San Marcos outside wall
The outside wall of the Castillo San Marcos. One of the corner diamonds faces front, with the former moat in front of it. The drawbridge across the moat is on the right. The English promptly kicked out the Spanish settlers, who mostly resettled in Cuba.
Under English rule, the governor welcomed people from many places, and people came to farm and create sugar plantations.
This lasted until the American Revolution.
Florida stayed out of that conflict because most of the residents were Loyalists.
Spain supported the colonists in the war, and received Florida back as spoils afterward.
Unlike England, Spain insisted that all residents convert to Catholicism.
Most of the Englishmen left.
Spain held the territory until 1815, when
Andrew Jackson invaded Florida officially to subdue Seminole raiders on Georgia.
Whatever his reasons, the action prompted Spain to sell Florida to the US in 1821.
The constant turnover of governments and people meant that the town changed
rapidly and often.
Each set of new arrivals remade the buildings that already existed to suit their tastes.
Most of the current older town is a hodgepodge of Spanish construction with English architecture grafted on.
Later on, the town briefly became a winter refuge for the rich, and there is some glorious buildings remaining from this era.
Finally, a historic revival began in the 1930s,
Castillo San Marcos inner courtyard
Inner courtyard of Castillo San Marcos, showing the fort layout. The round covering in the distance marks what used to be a well. and many buildings were returned to their older styles during this time.
St. Augustine looks like no other town in the US.
For example, the old section features what are likely the
narrowest legal streets in the country.
Some are so narrow there is no space for a sidewalk, and people have to walk in the street.
Castillo de San Marcos
In a town like this, every worthy site is history related.
The first site I saw was the
Castillo de San Marcos.
This stone fort was built by the Spanish starting in 1672, and it’s the one relatively unaltered structure from that era.
After the town was burned by English pirates for the third time, the king insisted the governor build something substantial to better defend the settlement.
The walls are made entirely of shellstone, a rare form of limestone that originates as seashells, and the only type of rock available in the area.
The design is pretty ingenious.
The fort has a
square shape, with diamonds in each corner.
The diamonds mean that cannon can be positioned to create deadly crossfire.
The fort is surrounded by a moat, and
Castillo San Marcos chapel
Remains of the Castillo San Marcos chapel, where Spanish soldiers worshipped every Sunday then an earthen ridge.
The walls are twelve feet thick.
The combination made the fort almost impregnable, and it was never taken in battle.
Tours of the fort are self-guided with a brochure from the park service.
The fort is divided into four sections, one for each wall.
One wall held the barracks.
When the English ran Florida, they had too many soldiers to fit at the fort, so they created bunk beds to fit everyone in.
One room looks vaguely like a chapel, and in fact was one.
The Spanish soldiers were good Catholics, and had to go to mass every Sunday.
One wall held provisions.
It consists of a series of vaults that are bare and gloomy.
The third wall was armaments and powder.
The powder storage had to be moved from its original spot because the original room was too damp.
The fourth wall held the officers room, which is now the gift shop (it’s a tourist town, so everything has
a gift shop), and a long thin room called the “necessary”.
Modern soldiers know it as the latrine.
This one
Spanish House, Colonial Spanish Quarter
A typical house from the first Spanish period, reconstructed in the Colonial Spanish Quarter. Note the large shutters and lack of window glass. The hanging shelves helped keep mice away from the food. had a piping system that ran to the ocean, pretty advanced for the time.
Colonial Spanish Quarter
After the fort, I went to a living history museum called the
Colonial Spanish Quarter.
It consists of a group of reconstructed buildings where reenactors portray life as it was lived in the early colony.
For anyone who has been to
Colonial Williamsburg or something similar, the setup will be very familiar, except that the culture is Spanish instead of English.
One notable difference is that the Spanish did not put glass in their windows, so houses would be cooled by the breeze.
To keep the bugs out at night, they closed the shutters.
Spanish houses also did not have fireplaces.
Hot coals were placed in a pan in the middle of the room when heat was needed.
For food, they ate a combination of goods imported from Spain and things they grew.
The settlers had very little dairy, because anything milk related would quickly spoil in the heat.
The museum was an enjoyable way to spend an hour.
Pena Peck House
My next site was one of
the city’s best historical houses, the
Pena Peck house.
It was built for the Spanish treasurer for the original colony, Don Estevan de Pena.
When the British took over, it became the Lieutenant Governor’s house.
After Florida passed to the US, the house was bought by a wealthy physician, Seth Peck, whose family owned it until it was donated to the city.
The owners of the house were prominent, so its history is unusually well documented.
The guides point out which parts were built by which people, and what architecture it reflects.
Most of the ground floor was built by the Spanish.
The house was built around a courtyard with a separate kitchen in another building.
This was typical for the time.
The exterior walls and the overall layout are the only part remaining from this era.
The walls are made of shellstone.
After the fort was finished, the governor encouraged wealthy families to build with this material, because it is fireproof and immune to water damage.
During a renovation, historians discovered the remains of a well in the courtyard.
Wells were normally used until they
Ponce De Leon Hotel
The former Ponce De Leon Hotel, once the most luxurious hotel in Florida ran dry, and then filled with trash.
This well yielded all sorts of artifacts from the Spanish period.
When the English took over, the new owner made several changes.
They added glass to the windows, and fireplaces in many of the rooms.
When the colony went back to the Spanish, the new residents tore most of the fireplaces out!
In one room, the walls have been left bare to show where a fireplace was added and then removed.
The English owner also moved the front entrance.
In Spanish houses, one entered through the courtyard.
In English (and American) ones, one enters from the street into a front hallway.
The Lieutenant Governor added a front hallway and door, plus a parlor on the far side, to the existing house.
After Florida was sold to the US, the Pecks bought the house.
The added a second story.
The parlor and bedrooms were moved to the second floor, and the first floor became his medical office.
The kitchen was also connected to the house proper during this time.
The family donated all the
St. Augustine City Hall
The former Alcazar Hotel, now St. Augustine City Hall. This scene is one of the most photographed in the city. furnishings along with the house, so the upper floor is a highly detailed look at the Victorian period.
Most of the furniture is ornate, as you would expect for a wealthy family in that era.
One thing to note is that most regular socializing took place in the upper hall; the parlor was reserved for more formal occasions.
I can only imagine what story time with the kids must have been like.
The last room holds the most valuable artifacts in the house, the Peck’s art collection.
Dr. Peck collected paintings of Florida landscapes, especially those of St. Augustine.
Many were commissioned by the railroads to promote Florida as a tourist destination.
These days, the paintings have become rather valuable, although they are not my taste.
Next, I saw two relics from the Gilded Age.
In the late 1800s,
Henry Flagler had a singular effect on Florida as a tourist destination, including St. Augustine.
After making a fortune as a partner in Standard Oil, he turned to railroads.
He built the
Florida East Coast Railroad, ultimately reaching all the way to Key West.
Along the way, he
St. Augustine Confederate Monument
Confederate Monument in the Plaza De Constitution in St. Augustine. Quite a contrast from the typical statue of a soldier staring resolutely north. built
luxurious hotels, to attract men like him to a Florida vacation.
In St. Augustine, he built two of them across a park from each other: The
Ponce De Leon and the Alcazar.
Unfortunately, St. Augustine was too cold in the winter for the Gilded Age wealthy, so they promptly moved to
Palm Beach once the railroad reached that far (where their
social descendents still are, for the most part!)
The hotels survived for a few more decades, until the collapse of the Florida properly boom in the late 1920s essentially killed them.
One hotel building is now used as the campus of Flagler College.
The other is City Hall.
Their exteriors are still glorious, although very little remains inside.
Still, imagine being a city worker in a building like that.
Plaza De La Constitution
The last sight of the day was the Plaza De La Constitution.
All Spanish towns at the time needed to have a city plaza by royal decree.
This was the plaza for St. Augustine.
It’s now a landscaped park reminiscent of town commons in New England.
Like all southern cities, this one has a Confederate monument as
Casa de Solana
Spanish dining room its centerpiece.
Unlike most, it memorializes the dead more than celebrates their heroic deeds, and admits that losing a war may not have been such a good thing.
I appreciated this fact.
I spent the night in the
Casa De Solana Bed and Breakfast.
The best way to soak up the atmosphere of St. Augustine is to stay in the historic district.
This particular one is located in a building built by one of the early Spanish settlers, although it has been extensively remodeled by successive owners.
The buildings are arranged around a courtyard.
The current owners have restored the downstairs to the Spanish era, and the upstairs is mostly English (since the English added it).
In keeping with the era, the ceilings are low and the hallways are narrow.
I handled it as part of the historic experience.
Driving there is also a bit of an adventure, thanks to the narrow and bumpy streets.
I enjoyed my stay.
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